Day 48 and 49

 Day 48

Today we are moving to the Usambara Mountains. We have breakfast and then meet up with our driver William, at about 9 o’clock. 

The first part of our journey is on the main Arusha to Dar es Salaam road. This is a tarmac road and we make good progress. Some of the road runs alongside the railway line from Moshi to Dar which has recently been reopened. 

We turn off this road at Mombo and start our drive up into the mountains. At this point the road is still tarmac. As we drive we get some good views. We pass some waterfalls and William stops so we can take some photos.

As we drive on up we get more views of the mountains. We drive through Lushoto, probably the biggest town in the area and then soon after the tarmac roads ends and we drive the last 40km on a mud and compacted stone road....this certainly provided us with an “African massage”.

The road takes us higher and higher into the mountains. We are surprised at just how much agriculture there is in this area. There are small farms everywhere growing vegetables and fruit. We are also surprised at how many small villages we drive through, we had not expected the area to be so populated. 

As we get near to the lodge William stops the car near to a school because he says there is a good view. We get out and take some photos.

We arrive at the Mambo View Point Lodge at about 2pm. Yousef welcomes us and shows us to our room which is called Fix Cottage. It is lovely and the views are amazing. We then go back to the dining room for lunch. All meals here are buffet style, eaten at shared tables but everyone else has already eaten lunch so we are on our own. We enjoy a lunch of soup and stuffed bread, followed by bananas, accompanied by fruit juice, water, tea and coffee. 

As we finish lunch, Abdul, the camp manager comes and introduces himself. We have a good chat with him. We then go and unpack, help ourselves to a drink from the “honesty bar” and sit and admire the views. We decide that tomorrow we will do the “Cliff and Village” walk so we arrange this with Abdul who then introduces us to Joseph who will be our guide. 

Dinner is at 6.30. The food is a slightly interesting selection of pizza, beef stew, lentils, mixed vegetables and potato salad. Not things we would necessarily eat altogether but none the less all tasty.

After dinner and coffee we retire to our room, shower and go to bed.

Today we had travelled 195 Km (122 miles) making our total road mileage since arriving in Tanzania 4165 Km (2603 miles)

Day 49

This morning we wake up to find we are above the clouds.

Breakfast this morning is quite busy as there are a large group of Polish guests, but they are all leaving today. Breakfast consists of juice, pancakes, bread, eggs and bananas.

At about 9 we meet up with Joseph. The first part of the walk is down through the forest and passed the local football pitch. We then walk along the cliff, where we get great views of our cottage. 

Our cottage is right at the top of the cliff. It is more visible in the second photo below where you can see the pointed roof.

As we walk Joseph explains all about the different plants and their uses, including eucalyptus, aloe vera, a plant used to treat malaria and another used to treat stomach issues. Sometimes he picks a few leaves and rubs them together for us to smell.

We continue getting great views as we walk. In a couple of places it’s a bit of a scramble but nothing worse than we do in the Lake District. We stop at one point and Joseph points out a cliff that looks like a face.

After a while we leave the cliff edge and walk through some countryside and past some houses. We still get good views including across one across to Mambo village. 

We reach the village of Kishurui where we can see houses built the traditional way with sticks and mud as well as others built with bricks. Joseph explains that at one point people used to flatten out the large tin cans that had cooking oil in and use them as roof tiles. However this stopped when the oil started coming in plastic containers. Now people use corrugated metal for roofing if they can afford it.

Walking though the village we see a small chicken house. Most people leave their chickens to wander free but a chicken house is used when there are chicks to protect them from being predated.

We call in briefly at the local Primary School to say Hi. We don’t like to tell Joseph that we have visited many many schools in Tanzania, we just go with it. The kids seem happy to see us and sing a song.

As we walk out of the village we pass a water pump that provides clean water and there is a young girl using it. She is happy to show us how it works.

We continue on across farmland where we can see the local people are growing all sorts of things including tomatos, cabbages, onions, maize etc. 

We reach Mambo village where today is market day and when we arrive it is pretty busy. We have a good walk around and Joseph does some shopping. 

The market is ever so colourful and all the produce looks lovely, and all really nicely displayed. We have a chat with a few people including some ladies selling nuts, another selling fish and a guy selling perfume which actually smelt pretty good. Everyone wants us to buy their fruit and vegetables and Joseph keeps having to explain that we get food at the lodge. In the end we do buy some nuts, they are very flat and I have never seen anything like them before. They taste a bit like Brazil nuts. 

On leaving the village Joseph shows us the local “cinema” which is a large shed with lots of benches. On days when their are Premiership Football matches the guy who owns the shed sets up a TV and charges people a small amount to watch the match.

It is now quite a steep climb back up to the lodge and we arrive just in time for lunch. We had a really good morning, got some exercise, got some great views, saw the local area and learnt some stuff as well. We really enjoyed it.

After lunch we spend the afternoon relaxing outside our room. It was pretty hot but we do get a bit of a breeze. The views this afternoon are some of the clearest we have had.

This evening we had dinner with several other guests and met Herman, the guy who owns the lodge. It was interesting to learn about the history of the lodge and Herman’s work to try and support the local community.